Streaming company, Netflix, has set out to create a $100 million relief fund for the laid-off employees and the affected workers across the United States. The Company is going beyond just supporting its own workers. It aims to lend support to workers across the industry.
In a company blog post, Ted Sarandos, chief content officer, Netflix, announced the establishment of the relief fund to ease the “hardship in the creative community.” The initiative aims to assist not only laid-off Netflix employees, but also crew and cast members across the industry — including those who are paid hourly wages and hired on a project-to-project basis.
In Sarandos own words, the fund will be used to support the most affected workers of their productions, around the world.
“We’re in the process of working out exactly what this means, production by production. This is in addition to the two weeks’ pay we’ve already committed to the crew and cast on productions we were forced to suspend last week,” Sarandos further added.
Netflix has also allocated a $15 million fund to third parties and non-profits providing emergency relief to affected workers in countries where Netflix has a large production base. The fund will be donated to SAG-AFTRA Covid-19 Disaster Fund, the Motion Picture and Television Fund and Actors Fund Emergency Assistance in the United States. A part of the fund will also be divided between the AFC and Foundation des Artistes.
Above all, Netflix continues to put in efforts to create emergency relief services in other regions across Europe, Latin America, and Asia, where it has a fairly large production base.
As per Netflix’s social media post, details of additional donations in other countries will be declared a week from now.
“While the governments are still clueless on what economic support to provide, we want to help this community through these hard times,” said Sarandos.
It is a challenging time for all companies and workers. As the coronavirus scare continues to impact employment across the globe, Netflix is doing its bit to support thousands of entertainment workers now rendered jobless.
